by Melissa Crossley

Created on: September 12, 2008   Last Updated: October 01, 2008

The morning of September 11th began just like any other and nothing has been the same once the sun set that evening. Like most people, I can tell you exactly what I was doing when I heard the news about the first tower, and where I was when they both fell. It is an event that will remain with all of us for the rest of our lives. It's a story that we will all share in different ways with our own children, and they will share with their own, until it becomes a story of history like Pearl Harbor.

The fall of the towers affected me in many ways. My mom, an E-6 in the Army popped up in my mind and worry that she would be called to duty in a new and scarier war. Then I wondered if there was anyone I knew trapped inside those burning towers. I had lived in New York for almost four years before returning to Utah. My main feeling at the time was one of shock. I felt shock that something like this could possibly happen. I wondered what the hell was going on in the world for someone to be so willing to kill that many innocent people.

On September 11th I was five months pregnant with my first child. That morning, I was supposed to go and have an interview with Workforce Services. Like I said before, everything was going on much like it had on any other day. Until I walked in, and saw that everyone was just standing around, and the stillness which surrounded them. The only sound was the hum of the news. Every eye was focused on the television. I left that building with the words, "we are under attack," ringing in my ears. I went to my Dad's house and woke him up, and together we watched the news unfold.

I cried only once, and then turned off the news because I couldn't watch it anymore. It was a clip of a man; I know it was a man because as he fell, I could see his tie flapping in the wind. I could see him and that image will haunt me forever. They showed that clip over and over again, as if the first time, we simply couldn't understand what he was doing. The very fact that so many felt it better to plummet to earth than wait it out is a testament in itself to the horror of that day. I cried that night and then turned away because it was too much to take in, too much to comprehend.

Today we celebrate and honor those that had their lives taken, and we look around us and see all the new laws that have been put into effect. We take stock of the war that we have been in for so many years now, and we ask ourselves if it's possible that somewhere between that day and now if we lost our way, if we lost sight of what we are trying to accomplish. School books are being re-written so that our children can learn of what happened that day, and all of us find ourselves talking to each other is if in a way trying still to find comfort and a reason for it all.

We taught our children to salute the soldiers who are still fighting for all those lost lives, and we will always look at that day and shudder. My only hope is that we take away more from that event than just more murder and war. I hope that we all have taken stock in our own lives and support those around us more diligently than in the past. I hope that we stop taking for granted those men and women who fight bravely and are willing to give up their own families and lives so that something like September 11th can never be repeated.

Learn more about this author, Melissa Crossley.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.